Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 1:3

"To whom he also showed himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing unto them by the space of forty days, and speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God:" — Acts 1:3 (ASV)

Having stated the relation of his present book to its predecessor and shown his interest in the four factors named above, Luke turns back to the time before the Ascension. He recapitulates and expands upon certain features in Jesus’ ministry crucial to the advance of the Gospel as he will present it in Acts. Like Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5–7, his emphasis is on the living Christ, who “after his suffering... showed himself... alive” and demonstrated his resurrection by “many convincing proofs,” such as the events in Lk 24:13ff. “Over a period of forty days” implies that during that time, the risen Lord showed himself at intervals, not continuously. When he did so, he “spoke about the kingdom of God.”

The theme of “the kingdom [GK 993] of God” is a common one in the OT and NT. Primarily it refers to God’s sovereign rule in human life and the affairs of history, and secondarily to the realm where that rule reigns. God’s sovereignty is universal (cf. Psalms 103:19). But it was specially manifested in the life of the nation of Israel and among Jesus’ disciples; it is expressed progressively in the church and through the lives of Christians; and it will be fully revealed throughout eternity. In the Gospels the kingdom is presented as having been inaugurated in time and space by Jesus’ presence and ministry (see comment on Mk 1:15). In Acts the phrase “the kingdom of God” usually appears as a convenient way of summarizing the early Christian proclamation (cf. 8:12; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31). Jesus is explicitly identified as its subject (cf. 8:12; 28:23, 31). We may infer that Jesus’ teaching during the “forty days” dealt in essence with (1) the validation and nature of his messiahship, (2) the interpretation of the OT from the perspective of his resurrection, and (3) the responsibility of his disciples to bear witness to what had happened among them in fulfillment of Israel’s hope (see Lk 24:25-27, 44-49). This is what Acts elaborates in the chapters that follow.